Key Skills to Develop For a Career in Banking and Finance

Saurabh Tyagi

Banking and Finance, although two separate sectors have a lot of things in common, skills required being one of them. An individual looking for a career in any of these sectors should possess some innate qualities and skills for a successful existence. This post is all about the same.

As the economy is going towards a better phase, sectors that are directly experiencing the ameliorating effects of this improvement include banking and finance which is looking out to hire talented professionals provided they have the required skill set. Banking and finance, both sectors represent a similar line of professionals sharing similar ideals and skills, to a large extent. Here are some of the key qualities that recruiters look for while hiring.

Intellect:  Clearly, a career in a banking institution or finance firm requires a student to be bright. To be specific, an intellectual thinker who has the ability to grasp new concepts quickly, whether it is a task, managing a project or assimilating data is the preferable choice of every recruiter. Individuals, who possess strong learning agility, can easily thrive in demanding and challenging situations, which are common occurrences in these sectors.

The banking and finance industry is continuously exploding with new trends, deals, opportunities with new markets being founded and old markets being relinquished to history. As such, it needs people who can deal with these fast-paced changes and deliver results quickly even in unfamiliar situations. Therefore, inquisitive personalities having intellectual curiosity, good at asking questions at the right time are a good fit for filling on vacant roles in this industry.

Innovative: A quality mostly identified with technology and science, it surely comes as a surprising inclusion on this list. However, being innovative is a highly prized trait for an individual aspiring to make a career in BFSI.  The ability to create or identify new opportunities to develop the business, generate new ideas, and approach a problem with a new and refreshing perspective is one of the key requirements to thrive in the age of cut-throat competition. Moreover, recruiters look for candidates who can think out-of-the-box and seek opportunities for improvements.

Quantitative aptitude: Professionals aspiring to carve their career in the banking and finance sector should have impeccable mathematical aptitude. Their number crunching ability should be second to none. Performing tasks like creation of financial reports, balance sheets, income statements and budgets requires one to have excellent quantitative ability.

They should have the knowledge of reading various financial reports and explaining it to clients or fellow colleagues. Your job in a bank will require you to deal with loads of money daily. If you are a finance professional and are employed in a brokerage firm, your responsibilities will include tasks such as writing orders for stock purchases, computing transfer taxes and distributing dividends to customers, all requiring an expert’s hand at mathematics.

Communication: Actually pretty obvious, ability to communicate verbally as well as in written form is an essential skill for any job in the current scenario. Finance professionals have to deal with the communication of lots of important policies and procedures to their clients. They have to address the budgetary concerns of the management along with redressal of consumer complaints for which they should have the required communication skills. There are a number of banking positions that require one to communicate with customers on a regular basis, answering their queries. Meetings, presentations and conferences are an important part of most managerial roles in these sectors, which again require the candidate to have excellent communication skills.

Resilience: There are plenty of stories about the famous pressure-cooker situations experienced by professionals in the BFSI. With aggressive deadlines to meet, and highly pressurized working environment to adapt to, recruiters need candidates who are resilient. Most banking and finance courses impart ample functional training to students so as they can deliver their responsibilities effectively. However, these courses fail to focus on the key skill that actually make or break a career; the ability to work under pressure. In the view of changing deadlines and emergence of new trends key competency covers resilience under intense pressure.

Global outlook: Trends travel fast in this industry. An economic ripple in the United States creates a flutter in the corporate world of India. Thus, graduates with the ability to operate in an international context are actively sought.

Saurabh Tyagi is an expert writer having interest in diverse topics like education, technology and career. His previously written articles on topics like banking, finance and commerce have been published on leading sites. He aims to provide positive career advice through his writings.